Showing posts with label love of reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label love of reading. Show all posts
Monday, May 24, 2010
Undercover Readers: RTRW 2010
In the Teaching & Learning Community, we celebrate reading 365 days a year. It's so nice, though, to have an official week of festivities that gives reading the honor it deserves. After all, reading gives us knowledge, pleasure and escape anytime, anywhere. And compared to the cost of other entertainment, it costs next to nothing!
The twelve schools in our district observed Right to Read Week in a wide variety of ways, with varying themes. Activities included everything from reading parades to crazy contests to book fairs. Students and teachers read together each day, responding to the reading in book clubs, nings and at evening events.
Our schools have celebrated Right to Read Week for decades, but this year our district office decided to join in on the fun. We work together each day, know a lot about each others families and interests. But we don't necessarily know each other as readers. We captured images of our favorite books, tucked away our photographs underneath, and created an interactive hallway display entitled, "Undercover Readers". Here's the district office custodian, Edith. She loves Gone With The Wind, but we didn't know it until now!
Next year promises to be bigger and better. Our community of readers will have read millions more words, turned thousands more pages, and scanned as many screens of text. We're all thankful for the right to read!
Tanny
Labels:
love of reading,
reading,
Right to Read Week
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
March Madness: In Search of Spring Reading
Spring break is coming and for some people that means time—at last—for pleasure reading. I took my bibliophile curiosity to work today to see what our colleagues are reading and recommending. Hope you get some ideas here for your spring break beach reads (readers' names in parentheses):
Fiction
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl (Nancy Maher)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Tim McGonagil)
Prey by Michael Crichton (Gary Bertsch)
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier (Tanny McGregor)
Under the Dome by Stephen King (Gary Brooks)
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper (Jill Hartard)
Apollyon: The Destroyer is Unleashed by Tim LaHaye and JerryJenkins (Sarah Bose)
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriell Barbery (Kathy Stemmer)
South of Broad by Pat Conroy (Pat Crahan)
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (Jake Riordan)
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs (Cyndee Westermann)
The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult (Becky McCammon)
I Alex Cross by James Patterson (Tracey Collins)
Nonfiction
Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times by Ralph Stanley and Eddie Dean (Rudi Smith)
Linchpin by Seth Godin (Laura Nazzarine and Cheryl Turner)
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath (Jeff Riel)
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (Jim Beshalske)
The Explosive Child by (Kathy Ballitch)
New Found Land by Allan Wolf (Steve Brungs)
Death in Yellowstone by Lee Whittlesey (Jim Mason)
What the Dog Saw by Malcome Gladwell (James Shelton)
What are you currently reading? Comment, below, with your spring break recommendations.
M.E.
PS For me it's a nonfiction work The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Photo credit: "Reading on Tangalle Beach" by Indi.ca via Flickr Creative Commons
Fiction
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl (Nancy Maher)
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson (Tim McGonagil)
Prey by Michael Crichton (Gary Bertsch)
Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier (Tanny McGregor)
Under the Dome by Stephen King (Gary Brooks)
Copper Sun by Sharon Draper (Jill Hartard)
Apollyon: The Destroyer is Unleashed by Tim LaHaye and JerryJenkins (Sarah Bose)
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (Kendra Herdtner)
World Without End by Ken Follett (Katie Hauer and Courtney Gelter)The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriell Barbery (Kathy Stemmer)
South of Broad by Pat Conroy (Pat Crahan)
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (Jake Riordan)
The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs (Cyndee Westermann)
The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult (Becky McCammon)
I Alex Cross by James Patterson (Tracey Collins)
Nonfiction
Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times by Ralph Stanley and Eddie Dean (Rudi Smith)
Linchpin by Seth Godin (Laura Nazzarine and Cheryl Turner)
Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath (Jeff Riel)
Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse (Jim Beshalske)
The Explosive Child by (Kathy Ballitch)
New Found Land by Allan Wolf (Steve Brungs)
Death in Yellowstone by Lee Whittlesey (Jim Mason)
What the Dog Saw by Malcome Gladwell (James Shelton)
What are you currently reading? Comment, below, with your spring break recommendations.
M.E.
PS For me it's a nonfiction work The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Photo credit: "Reading on Tangalle Beach" by Indi.ca via Flickr Creative Commons
Labels:
books,
love of reading
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
March Madness: Passion is Power
These days in education it's easy to feel discouraged. Disillusioned. Powerless even. Overwhelmed with paperwork, mandates and curricular changes, we sometimes forget that WE ARE the face of literacy to so many students, day in and day out. For some, we're their only hope.
High school teacher, literacy coach and author Penny Kittle carries a message for us. Everywhere she goes, she relays this simple, encouraging reminder:
"Literacy is a magnetic attraction. And the force of the attraction is the passion of the teacher."
(August 18, 2009, keynote address, Toronto, Canada)
Penny reminds us that we have the power to charm a child into a lifelong relationship with language. We ARE reading, writing and thinking to our students. And our influence goes on and on and on.
So, show your love of reading and writing, in big doses, every day! Read with expression. Talk about your favorite genres and authors. Read aloud a recent email, note or text message you've written. Share photos of your bookshelves at home. Bring in your favorite childhood book. Fill sticky notes with literacy quotations and place them on student desks. Tell stories about how you learned to read. Make sure your students know how reading & writing have changed your life.
Don't hold back. Literacy passion is literacy power.
Tanny
Labels:
literacy,
love of reading,
Penny Kittle
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